The Lazy Genius Podcast - #428 - How to Make a New School Year Easier

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

It’s the last Monday of July, so the energy is about to shift to getting back to school. August is a vibe. Even our Lazy Genius of the Week this week is about August, and she calls the month “one long Sunday night.” That tracks for a lot of people, whether you have kids in school, whether you’re an educator yourself, or whether you’re just officially winding down your summer. August has some big transitional energy.  So today, let’s talk about how to make a new school year easier. Helpful Companion Links Order my new book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy. Learn about The Playbooks here Other back-to-school episodes you might enjoy: #168: How to Go Back to School, #376: The Lazy Genius Back-to-School Checklist, #274: The Back-to-School Starter Pack, #221: Get Your Back-to-School Life Together Sign up for the Latest Lazy Listens email. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) Download a transcript of this episode. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sip. Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy. Via rail, love the way.

Hey there. You're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 428. How to Make a New School Year. easier. It is the last Monday of July. So the energy is about to shift to getting back to school. We start on Monday, August 25th, and I'm sure all of you listening run the gamut of when you start

school. Some might be as early as next week. Others don't start till after Labor Day. Regardless, August is a vibe. Even our lazy genius of the week this week is about August, and she calls the month one long Sunday night. I think that tracks for a lot of people. We all feel that way. Whether you have kids in school, whether you're an educator yourself, or whether you're just kind of officially winding down your summer. August has really big transitional energy. So today, let's talk about how to make a new school year specifically easier. Y'all getting ready for school is a project. It is a project. That is probably why it feels overwhelming when you think about it, because it's a whole project. That does not have to be discouraging, though. In fact, we can view it

today as a good and kind reframe and help plan for that project rather than react to it. Now, a quick side note before we continue, you can totally react to it. You totally can. As are true for many things, getting ready to go back to school is morally neutral. Like, it's okay if you're flying by the seat of your pants. Forms are being signed as kids are literally walking out the door. You don't have all the supplies yet or you're harried or feeling behind the whole time. Like, that's perfectly fine. It's just a different kind of experience. That's all. All we're doing today is making plans, which are all just intentions. They're just intentions anyway. They're not past, fail, right?

All we're doing is making plans for a different kind of experience, one where things are maybe a little bit more prepared, but still knowing that we'll likely have to adjust and notice down the road, as we lazy genius planners do. So this episode is not about like being a better person or a better mom or a better planner. it's just about trying to create an experience with more ease if that is what you would like. So if getting ready for school as a project, we're in luck because we know how to plan a project like a lazy genius. There's a whole chapter of it in my book, The Plan, and you can refer to that chapter over in the next few weeks if you like as you prepare for school to start outside of this episode. But here's how we know that going back to school is a project. A project has four things.

that I think make it a project and not just like another task on your list, right? So first, the project has an objective. There is like a single purpose that we're after here, not some ongoing forever thing, which speaks to the second thing about a project. It has an end. A project has an end. Once you go back to school, the project is over, right? The third thing that's true about a project is that projects are out of your ordinary. They're not already incorporated into a daily routine or a rhythm, so you have to add them on purpose. That's definitely true of going back to school. And then fourth, projects require more than one decision or task. Well, yeah, it feels like there are so many decisions and tasks, maybe even too many. But this is why going back to school feels really

big for some of you. It's a project. It's a project on a deadline that you can't really just like let it sit like you do an unorganized closet that could honestly stay that way forever. Like if you have kids, they have to go to school. If you're a teacher, you have to go back to work. It's just the way of things. So it's a project that cannot be ignored, which also adds to the urgency of it. But since we know it's a project, we can approach it like one, especially through a kind, lazy genius lens. There are five steps to finishing a project. So let's apply them to going back to school. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for

Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. In order to make a new school year easier, we're going to treat it like a project, and the first step of finishing a project is making time to assess it. In fact, what I want you to do is to listen to this episode, and then afterward, just set aside like an hour or two to work on all five of the steps that I'm going to lay out. So step one is to make a plan, to assess, to kind of examine what needs to happen. to go back to school. Now you can do this by yourself or you can do this with a friend or two who are in the same boat as you. Maybe it's other parents with kids going back to school. Maybe it's other educators

who are going back to work. Regardless, you're going to want to sit down for a little bit to work through these things, to think through it all. And you might really enjoy the experience of doing that with someone. And it's not necessarily about brainstorming things together, although you can totally do that. It's really just being with another person who's doing the same thing as you and making it more pleasant than doing it alone. It's just like mirroring. It's task mirroring. But if you would rather do it alone, that is totally great. But maybe do it somewhere that's like calming and nice. You know, go to a coffee shop, go to a bookstore, go to a park if you don't live in a hot place. Think through all the details of going back to school in a way that's pleasant, but schedule it all the same. So that's step one.

just set aside time to figure out your details. And those details are the next four steps. All right. So step two, you're going to name what matters. When this project of going back to school is over, what was accomplished? What was the objective? What's the main goal here? What matters most?

Are you wanting ease where you make choices that are like the simplest possible choice? Are you wanting to be prepared so that things don't sneak up on you? Is it about creating a memorable first week of school for yourself or for your kids? Is it about creating a memorable last week of summer for yourself or your kids? Like what matters here? What are you really after? Like singularly, what are you after? Knowing that, it helps you make the most helpful decisions.

For example, if you want ease, you can just order school supplies online. Like, that's easy. Don't ask your kids what they want. Just like get the basics. If you want an experience, you'll go to the store together, which is not terrible. very easy if we're honest. But that's not the most important thing, right? If it matters that you are prepared, then you're not always going to be making the easiest choice because being prepared often requires a little bit of foresight. You know, you're going to call the school to figure out

the dates for things that aren't posted anywhere yet. You know, you're going to find out the dates for the open house and all that kind of stuff. That's not easy, but it will help you be more prepared if preparation is what matters most to you. So decide what matters the most about going to school. That's step two. Step three is to confirm your end date. When this project of yours is over, like when is it over? It might be the first day of school.

Like as long as you get to that day, you're golden. Or depending on what matters to you or just how your schedule rolls, your end date might be the end of, the first week of school, you might make a marker further down, like even past Labor Day, assuming that you start school before then. Some of you start after Labor Day. And if that's you, if your school year doesn't even start until like the Tuesday after Labor Day, then your end date for that project. It might be the middle of September, you know. It doesn't matter what you choose, but by giving yourself a project end date, you're creating

space, especially if that end date is later than that. the first day of school. It means you don't have to have everything ready or figured out by that first day. You have a little bit of time, right? Whatever you choose is great. Just choose the end of your going back to school project. Let it mark the end so that you don't stay overwhelmed and stressed out when the project technically is already over. Now step four is to set aside some time to work on your project, to work on getting ready to go back to school. Now, you're about to break down the decisions and the tasks that you will need to complete before the end of your back to school project in the next step, and those are the

things that you will need to do, right? Remember, one of the things that makes a project challenging is that the decisions and the tasks are out of your ordinary. So that means you really do have to add it into your regular life. if you don't add time on purpose, if you don't schedule time to get these things done, you probably are not going to happen upon time like you hope you will, or you'll just respond more like frantically or urgently when instead you could know that time is there for you because you already set it aside.

Now again, it's okay if you don't, right? It just means that it'll be a frantic, more frantic season and that's okay. But if you want it to at least have the possibility and potential of a little bit more calm, schedule some time in your, that's out of your ordinary, right? So grab your calendar and just carve out a couple of chunks of time between now and your end date, your project end date. If you have a full-time job, you're probably more worried about having enough time. You know, maybe you can make like one lunch break each week until school starts your time to just sort of get on top of the things while you eat or you could grab like one big Saturday and just batch it all.

Some of you might benefit from grabbing a couple of hours here and there or you might like the rhythm of saying that like every Thursday is get ready for new school year day, you know? Whatever you choose, just set aside time. Now, you might be asking how much time, Kendra, how much time? Now it all depends on what you need to do, which is the next step. But here's why I want you to schedule time first. Do you know that saying it's something like work expands to the time that you give it?

it's not exactly that, but it's something like that. Well, it's often true. The amount of time that we schedule for something is often how long it takes us. And some things likely don't need nearly as much time as we give them. Here's a funny example from my real life just the other day. So my daughter, Annie, she hates getting ready for bed, especially brushing her teeth. She hates it. I mean, like not many kids love it, but it's like also a low-key battle every single night. But this girl loves to win a race. Who, baby. So a lot of times, if she's cranky or resistant about doing something like the other night and she did not want to brush her teeth. I said to her, okay, well, let's see who can finish first. You brushing your teeth

or me cleaning up the kitchen from dinner. She immediately took off. Like no countdowns or anything. She was just gone to the bathroom. Now, she has an electric toothbrush that pulses every 30 seconds and then does like that final bigger pulse at two minutes. So I knew that I had at least two minutes. And I yelled down the hallway. I was like, follow the pulses. You have to do all the pulses. because she could just stop, you know? But I knew I had at least two minutes. Y'all, the kitchen was messy. Like we had nachos that night.

We had watched a movie too while we ate dinner. So dishes were in the living room. They were in the kitchen. They were all over the counter. It was a kitchen mess that would easily take 10 to 15 minutes on a regular day and one that might emotionally feel like it would take even longer, like if I was just looking at it. Y'all, when she ran back into the kitchen, two minutes later, screaming,

I'm done, I beat you, what she did. I was just loading the last dish into the dishwasher. All that was left in cleaning up the kitchen was wiping down the counters, which I personally enjoy a lot, and then hand washing two pans, which I just left in the sink for cause to do later. I cleaned the kitchen and what would end up being less than three minutes. Sometimes our overwhelm about a new season is bigger than the actual list we have, and then sometimes our assumptions about that list and how long it's going to take is way bigger than what it actually is. It feels overwhelming. New projects and new seasons and all of this. They feel overwhelming because there are a lot of moving parts. But most of the decisions and the

tasks that you have will probably just take a few minutes, kind of like cleaning the kitchen much faster than you think it will take. And when you have a couple of hours set aside to take of those decisions and those tasks, they really will get done with a lot less stress and probably in less time than you think. Okay, which leads me to step five, break down the decisions and the tasks. It's time to think about what needs doing for this new school year project. So I made a list of things that might be on your list. These are categories. You can add what I'm missing, but categorically, like jot down what you think you need to take care of before your end date, which categories resonate with you and then there are going to be specific tasks within them.

But what I would like for you to do is remember that you are tending to tasks that are due before your project end date, not after. Only pay attention to essential tasks that have to get done before your end date for your project whenever that is for when your school year starts. Okay? If it can wait, let it wait. All right. So the new school year categories that you might have decisions and tasks about, especially when it comes to kids, those are the ones I'm going to focus on now, are morning routines and evening routines. In other words, like transitioning from summer sleep patterns to school year patterns. Room readiness or space readiness, it doesn't have to be a bedroom.

But like if your kid needs to clean out their desk from, you know, summer Lego usage and move to homework time or something like that, you know, getting the spaces ready, clothes and uniforms, school supplies, doctor or dentist visits, including things like immunizations and sports forms, if your kids are playing sports, lunch packing and supplies, breakfast plans for school mornings, school transportation, you know, like signing up for the bus or finding a carpool, attitudes and then closing ceremonies for the summer or maybe opening ceremonies for the school year. Okay, so those are some ideas. So you can identify which categories resonate with you and what decisions and tasks are within

those categories for you or your family. Okay, so here's what's on our list for us. The bedtimes and when kids get up, that will have to happen. my children are going to bed so late right now and sleeping in, which I'm loving, but that is not going to be fun when school starts. So what we will have to do, I will make a note in my calendar to start the kids going to bed earlier and earlier, the week-ish, maybe week and a half before school starts, just a little bit at a time, and then waking them up early and earlier too.

Room readiness isn't really a thing for us, and neither are closed for school. It's North Carolina, so it stays hot like a long. time. And my kids go to public school without uniforms. So they'll just like keep wearing the clothes they've been wearing this summer. So I don't have to worry about that. For us, those school supplies, we definitely have to have school supplies. But I cannot do those until we go to open house for all three of my kids' schools, because they're in elementary, middle and high school. It's the final year. It's the final year of three kids in three schools. You guys, I can do it. So we can't know about supply lists until we go to open house. But I have those dates on the calendar. I know when

those open houses are. And then I have a morning after all those open houses are done, blocked off to go with the kids and get whatever we do not already have from the school supply list. Okay, so the dentist and doctor stuff, dentist happened last week. Doctor is happening next week. And one of my kids who does need immunization updates, he will get his shots at the doctor. I do not have children in athletics at all. so no forms to prepare for teams. I don't have to do that. Now, next category was lunch and breakfast.

Those things won't really change from what we've done in the summer, like food-wise. Like, we're in a good rhythm with that. But what we do need to do is I need to, like, get the, like, excavate the lunch boxes from the back of the cabinet and give them a good clean probably because they've, you know, been back there for three months. we use those planet box bento lunch boxes we've been using this for years and years and years like literally since sam my oldest was in preschool and he is now going to be a sophomore in high school so we've been using those lunchboxes a long time then i need to like clean them and pull

them to the front so that we can access them in the mornings same with preparing backpacks my kids backpacks are currently still full from last school year they have not been cleaned out yet and they're also like in random spots that will not be their final home, their place once the school year starts. So that is a task that we'll need to do. The kids will need to clean out their bags to ready them for the new year. We will then decide if anyone needs a new backpack, right? And then we will create space in the house where those bags will go once the school year starts. Thinking about the order here, I know that I want that task of my kids cleaning out their bags and then assessing if they need new backpacks, I want that to happen before open house.

In other words, before the day that we go to get supplies. So I know if a backpack is on that list of supplies, right? So you can do that too. You can kind of put those tasks in order that makes sense so that you're not going to the store more than you need to or whatever. Okay. For us, carpools are definitely a thing, and I've got to spend a lot of time on that. that's probably my biggest, like, category and biggest hurdle. It's more complicated because it involves multiple people, right?

And that'll just need some time, even just waiting on responses from people of, like, who's in and who's out on carpal this year. So that'll have to be, that one feels in my spirit a little bit more overwhelming than the other ones because it's not finite and it's not just me. But that's okay. I'm going to create space for that. it's going to work out. It worked out last year. It's going to work out this year. Now, as far as attitudes go, I listed that as a possible category that we need to pay attention to. Most of my kids

are excited to go back. I mean, like, I mean, most of my kids, I have three. They're all like fairly excited to go back. Two more than one of them. My middle kid is not super stoked. But also, all of them get way more excited after we go to open house. They're like kind of ready. They're excited without me having to help them get there. So I don't even really worry about it until then. You know, if they're like, I don't want to go back to school. I'm like, dude, I get it. And leave, you know, just affirm and leave it.

Because eventually they're probably going to be fine. And then for like closing ceremonies for the summer, we always as a family go out to dinner. Not always the night right before the first day of school, because sometimes that feels like too much depending on how everybody's doing, but really, really close to the first day of school. We'll go out to eat. sometimes we go with friends if they're free and then we share what we loved about summer and what we're

looking forward to about going back to school again. We just mark it very simply. We usually go to Freddy's and just get, you know, burgers and fries. Okay. So what I'm going to do personally is I'm going to take that list that I just gave you of mine. I'm going to take that. I'm going to sit at a coffee shop with a friend. We've already planned that we're going to do this together in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to drop those tasks into the slots that I've carved out, right? The timing that I've already carved out. Now, I might adjust some things here or there on my calendar. I might notice that I don't really need nearly as much time as I thought I did, and so I can just take the block off. But mentally, for me, you might be different, but for me, it's better for me to start with time blocks rather than

the tasks because I just find. it easier to add tasks to existing blocks of time than to look at a whole list of task and then try to find time for all of them. Like that second one has always been an overwhelming order for me. It's just like a harder obstacle somehow to find time for all the specifics, rather than just like slotting the specifics into time containers that I already set aside. You do you though, you do whatever makes sense for you. But these five steps, they will probably take you maybe.

an hour. Like I said at a coffee shop to just plot and plan. It's even more fun if you have a friend there with you. And then you're ready to finish the project. Then you just follow kind of your calendar. You follow whatever tasks you have in that time block. You can even put them like in your Google calendar under the description of that event, write down the tasks you're going to do during that event. You know, you can just put it there, right? It is a manageable project now with scheduled time and organized tasks. And you don't have to be so stressed about the bigness. of the new season anymore. Any overwhelm you have about a new season is going to stay big when you keep the problem big. If you say to yourself, oh, I'm going to transition into this new school

year, you will not know where to start, where to slowly solve small problems. So naming your categories and specific tasks and decisions, it will help you see what you really do have to do, right? You might still have some scattered feelings because new seasons almost always, do, you might still feel overwhelmed here or there. But that is not an indicator that you're doing it wrong. It just means that you're in a new season and dealing with the project. And the frequency in your body is just like a little higher, right? That's okay. That's really normal. You can breathe through that. You can remember that you have time already planned to tend to the uniform buying and the carpool planning and the breakfast burrito making, you know, you've done the hard work already of

setting aside time, of setting the tasks that are needed to be done in that time, and your project, it has an end. You've given it an end. The success of starting your school year is also not an indicator of how the entire year is going to go. Remember, this is just a single project with an end date. And once you're finished, you're finished. Then you keep doing, you know, the kind of daily work of noticing and adjusting and adjusting your plans you live your life in the season that you're in. And that's how to make a new school year easier. All right, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Lauren Lachio.

Lato? Hi, Lauren, so sorry. Lauren shared this, I think, last year, but now the timing of it is perfect. So Lauren writes, educators often say that the month of August feels, like one long Sunday night. I said that in the beginning of the episode. As an educator of 25 years myself, I have known this month of anticipation, anxiety, and nervous energy firsthand. This summer, at the end of July, I made a bulleted list of all of the things I'm looking forward to in August. This includes all of the fun aspects of starting a new school year, as well as intentionally

planned low-key gatherings with friends. I reflect on that list weekly, and this past weekend I said to my husband. I love August. This reframe for me has made such a difference in my outlook, stress levels, and how I prioritize the different aspects of my life. What a delightful idea this is, not even just for the start of school as an educator, but for any season that's overwhelming. Make a list of things that you're looking forward to and check in with those things. In fact, that's why I love the playbooks so much. That's part of their job. These are like a little planner companions that we made. They are meant to capture. all the things about a month, especially the things that are good and joyful, so that you can be

present in all aspects of your life, not just overwhelmed by them. So the summer playbook, it is still active for those of you who have it. It runs from June to August. But if you would like to start doing this for the fall, which is just a handful of weeks away, check out the fall playbook. It's September, October, and November, and it has space to do exactly what Lauren is suggesting, plus places for lists, opening closing ceremony ideas, decide once ideas for the season, all kinds of good lazy genius stuff. This episode about preparing for a new school year has you excited, the playbooks will be a delight for you to have.

It's planning without the pressure, and you're going to love it. So you can find out more about them at the lazy genius collective.com slash playbooks. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. Thanks y'all for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than

a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called becoming you. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.